Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1887-09-10
LITERARY cRaNks,
The "cofsee and cakeTnIan and the ons


The Coffee and Cake"AIan and IN One
ofIthe Heavenly "Arcana."
Said an attendant of the Boston pub
lilo library to q Herald reporter: "From
morniDg until night, no matter what
time you may call, You can always find
from one to q dozen eceentrics in these
reading-fooms. Whenever o man loses
the balance of his reason, hs turns his
attention to literature. A few years ago
y man, then we'll known in Boston, lost
nearly all of large fortune. In a
Snort time hiss mind became affected,
Up to the time ofss losing his mad he
had been anything hssliterary charsc.
ter; Ia fact, while sane h5 rarely read q
book, but as Don as his intellect became
nnhinged off he trndged to the library.
He came here steadily. He came here
ST, edIly every day for three years. Ae
was always the first to arrive in The
morning. You could generally See
him standing outside, waiting for
the lanltor@ to open the door;
and he was invariably the last person to
leave at night; aud during all this time
he was never known to ask for or to read
but M book--the "Encyclopseiia
Britannica" Every morning at cup
walked our crank to the office deck, got
down his ENJOY clor @dia, and then, with
q proud. knowing expression, he would
march over to- the faTthest corner OF the
room, where he would steadily SIT, with
out once moving his chair or even chang.
ing his position until six O'Clock at night
when, after We had rung the leaving
bell. at least three times and every one
bat himself hid left the roem, he would
slowly and regretfully creep up to the
desk. There with a sigh of intense grief
ne would deposit his encyclopedia and
then walk out Of the room looking like
q mar who haaaparted forever from his
best friend.
Another we used to call the coffee
and cake crank He was q man Of
medium age, and he had 9 mania for
reading books abont ~children, though
NO was himself a cnIid1sss man, and had
never, /! believe. been married, Still !.
he would come here every day. He
Yves always one OF the very first to arrive,
end he wa lei known to read any
thing that did not tell something about
bringing up children. We called him
coffee and cake crank because, regular
~ as the CLOCK struck eaoh hour. he
W0oANs WNAA OR w u oCbR AlG HhA OQ6
of the attendants to keep his book for
him while he went out and got some cot
Zee aE:a@eaass. assure you hs diG this
every hour. He came to the library at
nine, and at ten, eleven, and at each
succeeding hour until sig, whom our
Library, CLOSES. he would 20 out
and get his coffee and cakes. lhaye OF.
Cen thought what q marvellous digestion
that man must have had. Ii all the
books he had read about bringing nm
children, did not teach him that ID was
wrong to eat coffee and cakes every hour
Of the day, there is very little to be
learned from books.
"Besides these two cranks we had an.
other q who. was almoat az bad, and
whom we used to cali Heavenly Arcann,s
He was D regular visitor to the library
every day fol-, five years, and, so far as
we know, during ell OF that time he
never read anything bnt S~wedenborR,s
Heavenly Arcana., He used the book
go i~ncessantly that he finally wore the
binding Off, end, as we al
ways do In such cases, we
sent the book around TO have o new
binding put on. A swell ~ / now re-
collect, our crank had turned his
Heavenly Arcana" in on q Sat-
urday night, and when he came
around Monday morning and found that
We had sent the book 20 the binders to
be repaired, he was furious. He threat
ened to report us to the mayor, and he
came really very nearly having q fght
with the librarian. But. fortunately,
the binders, appreeiating probably
whom they had to work for. were very
expeditions, and on Tuesday morning
our friend was enabled to onec more
enjoy his Heavenly Arcana."